Illinois Voters Face Advisory Ballot Questions on State's Anti-BDS Law

Voters in several Illinois communities will face advisory ballot questions on Tuesday asking whether the state should repeal its first-in-the-nation law against the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement.

The non-binding questions appear on ballots in the Chicago suburb of Oak Park and in communities around Champaign and Peoria. Whatever the results, the 2015 law - which bars the state from investing pension funds in international companies that boycott Israel - remains in place. Repealing it would require action by the state legislature and the governor.

Illinois was the first state to pass a law targeting BDS, signed by then-Gov. Bruce Rauner, and many other states followed. Activists began gathering signatures for the ballot measures after a state representative's effort to repeal the law was scuttled during the most recent legislative session.

Chicago Jewish leaders, organized through the Jewish United Fund, are urging voters to keep the law. "It's a fight, to put it simply," said Dan Goldwin, the fund's public affairs officer, which said it is mounting "planned and meaningful opposition" to the measures.

"Illinois, which was really a laboratory for creating anti-BDS state laws years back, inevitably has become a site for backlash," said James Loeffler, a Jewish historian at Johns Hopkins University.

A representative for Gov. JB Pritzker did not return a request for comment on the ballot initiatives.

Also on Tuesday, voters in Providence, Rhode Island, will decide a more consequential measure that could result in the city divesting its pension funds from Israel. Somerville, Massachusetts, has been charged with finding a way to do the same following a successful divestment vote there last year.